THE YAKHA: CULTURE, ENVIRONMENT AND DEVELOPMENT IN ...

to collect a VSO (Voluntary Service Overseas) representative on e field
visit and was returning to Dharan and Bfratnagar that night, so we set
off for the Tarai (the Nepalese lowlands) in that. We were fortunate in
having access to the British Gurkha Military hospital in Dharan and,
after one week there with splendid treatment for diagnosed double
pneumonia, when Tamara was discharged we spent Christmas with some
expatriate friends fn Dharan, We then returned to Kathmandu from where
Tamara went to the relative warmth and comfort of friends in South India
for a fortnight's convalescence while I returned to Tamaphok.
We were able to return to the village together in February, and had
a very productive month of fieldwork, Besides our normal routine,
Tamara collected a list of body parts fn ths Yakha language for
contribution to a Sfno-Tibetan etymological dictionary project run from
the linguistics department of the Unfversity of California, Berkeley, I
went to an all-night a session which taught me a lot, On March 7th
we took a break by going to Dhankuta to buy provisions,
The weather on our walk back from Basantapur was atrocious, with
driving hail and rain, and I was carrying a 20kg backpack when I slipped
on a muddy path near the start of human habitatfon in Tamaphok and broke
my arm. It was getting dark and there was no way we could have returned
to Basantapur that day, so I made it home and took some strong pein-
killers we had left over from Tamara's spell in hospital, We asked Bhim
Bahadur to summon the village health worker and, while Tamara translated
instructions from the book 'Where There Is No Doctor', he and the health
worker pulled my arm by the light of a candle and splinted it. Next day
we had another unexpected journey out of the village to ths hospital in